Macavity Award Nominees

Mystery Readers International, the largest mystery fan/reader organization in the world, has announced nominations for this year's Macavity awards. Mystery Readers International is open to all readers, fans, critics, editors, publishers, and writers of mysteries.

The Macavity Award is named for the "mystery cat" of T.S. Eliot (Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats) and has been awarded since 1987. Each year, the members of Mystery Readers International nominate and vote for their favorite mysteries in four categories--Best Novel, Best First Mystery, Best Biographical/Critical, and Best Mystery Short Story--published in the previous year.

Winners will be announced at Bouchercon, held in Washington D.C. on November 1st through November 4th.

Best Novel

• Guns and Roses by Taffy Cannon - Strange things are happening on the History and Gardens of Virginia Tour. Are they odd misadventures? Harmless pranks? Or does somebody have murder in mind? Ex-Texas cop Roxanne Prescott thought she'd moved into a more genteel line of work, leading the well-heeled on educational tours for her aunt's travel agency. But as the group, which she has mentally nicknamed the Guns and Roses Tour, moves from Mount Vernon to Monticello, a practical joker targets the tourists. In Colonial Williamsburg the pranks escalate with deadly results. Roxanne must figure out which of her group is a killer hiding behind a genial facade.
• The Bottoms by Joe Lansdale - Deep East Texas in the Great Depression. A place where poverty is as prevalent and devastating as tornadoes. When young Harry Crane discovers a mutilated body in the river bottoms, a cold fear grips the region and racial tension nears fever pitch. Harry believes the killer is the Goat Man, a monster of Texas legend, made all the more real to Harry because he has actually seen him on his nocturnal wanderings. In the dark and gloom of the Texas night, and with no suspect in sight, the body count rises, a man is lynched, and the local law--Harry's father--intensifies the search for a savage killer who may be closer than anyone dares imagine.
• A Place of Execution by Val McDermid - Winter 1963: two children have disappeared off the streets of Manchester; the murderous careers of Myra Hindley and Ian Brady have begun. On a freezing day in December, another child goes missing: thirteen-year-old Alison Carter vanishes from her town, an insular community that distrusts the outside world. For the young George Bennett, a newly promoted inspector, it is the beginning of his most difficult and harrowing case: a murder with no body, an investigation with more dead ends and closed faces than he'd have found in the anonymity of the inner city, and an outcome which reverberates through the years. Decades later he finally tells his story to journalist Catherine Heathcote, but just when the book is poised for publication, Bennett unaccountably tries to pull the plug. He has new information which he refuses to divulge, new information that threatens the very foundations of his existence. Catherine is forced to re-investigate the past, with results that turn the world upside down.
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